


In This Shirt

by araliya



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 19:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16125077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: Loss.





	In This Shirt

**Author's Note:**

> *takes a deep breath* ookay. Before you guys read this, fair warning: this fic contains major character death. Please don’t read if you don’t feel up to it, or if you generally don’t read MCD. Also, none of this is written with ill-intent. Obviously. Otherwise, for all of you other gluttons for devastating angst like me, I encourage full steam ahead. 
> 
> Song from The Irrepressible's [In This Shirt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJ0ckX8-WQ).

_(there's a pain, it does ripple)_

 

_Day 43_

 

He sells the house.

 

In the past few weeks Chris hasn’t ventured further than the hallway, and their bedroom-  _the_  bedroom, has been locked shut. Chris doesn’t know where the key is. He thinks he might have given it to someone, but he can’t remember whom.

 

He can’t remember much from the last month.

 

The house smells stale and unfamiliar, and for that Chris is glad. It’s one less thing to desensitize himself to, one less thing that sweeps him up and throws him into a hole so dark and empty he sort of wishes it was real.

 

Cooper comes up to heel at his feet. He’s been more subdued lately- all of the pets have been. They know. Chris is somehow grateful, yet simultaneously  _horrified_. They aren’t supposed to  _know_ , they  _can’t_  know, they  _shouldn’t_.

 

It’s pain he now doesn’t want anyone else to experience, pain that swallows him whole and spits him back up, raw and bruised and  _bleeding_. Sometimes he can’t _breathe_ for how much it hurts.

 

Chris moves his things alone. He can’t let anyone else in there. It’s tiring, and time-consuming, and does nothing for his back, but  _no one else can step inside_. He works from the bottom floor upwards, slow and methodical. His body feels numb, but by the time Chris reaches the bedroom, it’s not numb enough.  

 

It’s alright, though; he’s prepared. The vodka burns so hard that his eyes water, but the dizzy heat is almost immediate. Chris almost wants to laugh. At the hand of cards he’s been dealt, at this- this  _thing_  he’s become.

 

Steeling himself, Chris steps inside.

 

***

 

_(and I bled every day now)_

 

_Day 11_

 

There’s someone shaking him gently, pulling him out of his thick slumber.

 

“Chris?”

 

The voice is female, and tentative.

 

Chris opens his eyes to see Ashley standing over him. She’s wringing her hands a little, and when he looks down at them, she stops guiltily.

 

“What?” he asks. His voice sounds foreign to him- hoarse and feeble. Chris swallows, and tastes blood.

 

He was crying, he remembers. He cried so hard he’d started to  _scream_ , tearing at his scalp, pulling his hair right from his roots. Chris remembers Ashley coming to find him, face a picture of pure terror.

 

He’d been  _pleased_  to see her so scared. For the smallest second he wasn’t the only one terrified, the only one utterly  _helpless_.

 

“You need to eat something,” Ashley says.

 

“I’m fine, thank you.”

 

There’s silence, and Chris thinks that might be it- he might be left in peace.

 

Then, “you’re not fine.”

 

Chris explodes.

 

“What the  _fuck_  do you think, Ashley?” he asks, sitting up so fast his head spins. Ashley backs away, eyes sorrowful. If anything, this makes Chris even angrier. “What the  _fuck_  do you want me to do? Get some rest and eat some food and go right back to my fucking life? I lost my  _husband_!” he shouts as if she doesn’t know. “I lost my  _everything_!”

 

Spittle flies from his lips, and hot tears stream down his cheeks. His arms are red and raw with scratches from his own fingernails. Ashley looks like she might faint- or  _vomit_ \- and with good reason.

 

“...I want to be there for you.”

 

Her voice is uncharacteristically trepidatious. Good. Chris wants her to cower, wants her to  _feel_  how badly he hurts.

 

“Please leave me alone, Ash,” he says finally. Then, quieter, “ _please_.”

 

At some point, she leaves him. Chris lies back down, head burning with the onset of a headache, and a chain digs into his neck as he does so.

 

On it, is a ring, cold and out of place.

 

***

 

_(on the wind I can hear you)_

 

_Day 287_

 

The silence is empty, but Chris likes it like this. He used to try to fill it up, with mindless ramble from the television, with the squeaky fan that used to live in the basement, even a radio he bought specially for the static. The only thing he never played, was music.

 

The new house is small, and more utilitarian than anything else. Often, Chris sleeps in the living room, with the porch doors open and the hot night air blowing in. The nearest building is a mile east, steep cliffs and shingle beaches to the west.

 

He is officially a recluse.

 

It seems only natural. Years ago, before he met Darren, before-  _everything_ , Chris had thought it inevitable. His preferred company was himself, his preferred past-time, being alone. Darren changed that. Darren brought him out into the world, showed him beauty and music and  _love_ \- so much love.

 

The silence is empty, but Chris doesn’t have anything to fill it with anymore.

 

Sometimes, he goes down to the beach with the dogs. Chris watches them play in the brackish spray, fur matted with salt and sand. Sometimes, Chris thinks about walking into the glacial waves, when the tide is most unforgiving.

 

The sound of a car engine pulls Chris jarringly out of his reverie, his heartbeat sped up into irregular palpitations. (Chris doesn’t drive anymore. He can’t, not without seeing the mangled wreckage of Darren’s car, bursting into flames with heartbreaking finality.)

 

It’s Cerina. She has a large Tupperware container in her arms and sunglasses over her eyes. It’s cloudy outside.

 

She takes Chris into her arms and kisses him. Underneath the glasses, her eyes are not sad, but determined. She walks with purpose, every word spoken with intent. It was Cerina who found him the house and helped him set up.

 

It was Cerina who ensured that the drunk driver got jail time so long it was unlikely he would recognize the outside world if ever he survived his sentence.

 

They sit on the patio and Chris shows her his new manuscript. She tells him to send it to his publisher.

 

Chris might. Writing is the one thing losing Darren didn’t strip away from him. In fact, he’s written more than he ever has this past year. Chris isn’t any less hollow, but words help to fill the void in his life. He reads every letter he gets- stores them away obsessively.

 

His readers remind Chris that he has something to live for. Their happiness bleeds into his own life, colours it as rich as it can get with the ache hanging over him like a storm cloud.

 

They remind him that it will all be okay. If anything can heal, it’s the steadfast turning of time.

 

 

_(in this shirt,_

_i can be you,_

_to be near you_

_for a while)_


End file.
